


Strings of lights

by hollyanneg



Series: Fairytale AU [2]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Royalty, Childhood Friends, Gardens & Gardening, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, fairytale AU, prequel to in gardens, preteen boy shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 19:34:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29954847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollyanneg/pseuds/hollyanneg
Summary: Ronan sneaks into town with Adam for a day.For the request: More of Adam and Ronan's childhood friendship in "In gardens all wet with rain"
Relationships: Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Series: Fairytale AU [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2203095
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	Strings of lights

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Of_stars_and_moon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Of_stars_and_moon/gifts).



It was morning; they snuck out through the door in the garden wall. From a certain angle, it was hidden by an ancient, leafy holm oak and couldn’t be seen from the palace. They were more likely to be spotted by Adam’s father rather than anyone in the palace, if he was in the garden instead of sleeping in the shed with his tools or bedding one of the kitchen girls (Ronan had heard someone say Adam’s father did that. Adam hadn’t mentioned it).

Adam only said, “They won’t notice I’m gone for hours.” He was limping that day and wouldn’t say why. Adam was mysterious about lots of things, which only made him more fascinating, in Ronan’s opinion. Maybe the Parrishes were secretly spies in His Majesty’s employ. Maybe they were bandits on the run, and the king and queen had no idea. Maybe Adam had more magical powers besides just seeing the future. The possibilities were endless.

Today, Adam had offered him an adventure of the type Ronan rarely had—a trip into town. Ronan’s mother had decided she wanted some lemon trees to plant near the orange trees in the garden—“To make it sunnier,” she said. So Adam’s father had told him to go into town and see if he could buy a couple of saplings, or if not, seeds, and also a bag of sand and some lime.

“Limes?” Ronan had asked, confused. “She didn’t ask for limes.”

Adam laughed at him. “Not the fruit. Like limestone. We need that and the sand to make the soil right for the lemon trees.”

“I knew that,” Ronan said, and Adam kept laughing at him.

Ronan never got to go into town as himself, and not as His Royal Highness the Prince. He never went without guards, and rarely without his father. This morning, he had put on a hat and his plainest clothes in hopes of being less recognizable. He’d misled his tutor slightly in telling him he didn’t need his lessons this morning (he hoped the tutor wouldn’t ask his parents about it).

So they snuck out. Adam led him through the narrow streets around the palace, taking a few turns without stopping to think about it. He knew the town well—sometimes Ronan forgot that Adam hadn’t always lived at the palace.

The streets here were paved with stones that Adam said came from a quarry outside the town. They were lined with stuccoed buildings with balconies that hung out over the street. “What are these buildings?” Ronan asked.

“Apartments,” said Adam. “People live in them.”

Ronan felt a little silly. What a sheltered life he led.

Adam took him to a marketplace set up in the main town square, where Ronan had been before for special events. Instead of standing on the steps of the town hall and waving politely, he got to weave in between the stalls and tents with Adam like any other boy. He’d been excited about this ever since they made the plan, but now the feeling was building—he felt like he could fly.

There was a stall with an old man selling gardening tools and little potted plants and bags of soil. “Dirt to put on top of your dirt,” Adam said wryly. “Only rich people can do this.” Then he switched into his polite voice, negotiating for bags of sand and lime. He discussed with the gentleman where one might buy lemon trees, and the man directed them to visit an orchard on the edge of town that sometimes sold trees.

“That’s a long walk,” Adam told Ronan. “You don’t have to come with me.”

Ronan rolled his eyes. “Of course I’m coming with you.” They each took one of the heavy bags and headed out.

They walked down a wide boulevard that cut through the whole town. It was lined with orange trees like some of the little avenues in the palace gardens. On one corner, they passed a statue of one of Ronan’s ancestors, an old king. Adam paused just briefly and said, “I can really see the resemblance.”

“It’s our coloring,” Ronan said, holding up his pale arm next to the statue’s bronzed legs. Before he could properly think it through, he dropped his bag and climbed up on the statue pedestal, striking the same pose as his ancestor, hands on his hips, legs spread wide.

Adam nodded approvingly, holding back a smile. “You look very kingly.”

Ronan looked up at the statue’s head and made some calculations. “Do you dare me to climb to the top of this?”

Before Adam could respond, he grabbed his ancestor’s arm and pulled himself up. He heard Adam laughing, and then behind him, “Boy! Boy! You get down from there!” Ronan looked down from where he was hanging. A man in an apron had come out of the butcher shop on the corner and looked practically apoplectic. “Come down or I’ll call the constable!”

Adam looked amused and alarmed all at once, so Ronan lowered himself back to the ground carefully.

“I best not see you boys around here again!” the butcher yelled, wagging a finger at them.

As soon as they turned onto another street, they both burst into laughter. “If that man only knew who you were!” Adam said.

“He scolds better than my mother,” said Ronan.

They scampered down the street, barely weighed down by their bags. It was such a glorious day, all blue skies and no clouds. Autumn, so it wasn’t too hot or too cold. Ronan took deep breaths of the fresh air and wished he’d never have to go home.

But they did, of course, after visiting the orchard, where Adam successfully negotiated a lower price for the two lemon trees.

Back at the garden wall, Ronan paused and took one last look at the street outside. Who knew when he’d leave the palace again.

Adam disappeared to give their wares to his father, but he found Ronan in the garden grotto later, just at dusk. He lay down with Ronan on the stone bench, nudging Ronan’s foot with his. “Tired?” he asked.

“This was the best day ever,” Ronan said, sighing happily. “I owe you.”

“Nah,” Adam said.

“Yeah,” said Ronan—arguing, but lazily. “I’ll dream you something new if you want. Something better than just seeds.”

Adam was silent for a while, like he was thinking it over. Finally, he said, “You don’t have to. But I’d love to have some lights to hang in the witch-hazel tree when it’s bigger.” They had planted the witch-hazel together at the beginning of their friendship, when Adam had dared him to prove his powers by conjuring seeds.

“Easy,” Ronan said. He was already close to sleep, so he let himself fall into it. When he woke, it was pitch-black and Adam was gone. Adam was too sensible to sleep outside, probably.

Ronan was holding a string of lights that glowed all by themselves, no need for fire. He took them with him when he snuck back inside. They were too precious to leave outside, unguarded.

He presented them proudly to Adam the next day. Adam was working in the garden that day. The weather had suddenly turned cold, and Adam’s bare, calloused hands looked frozen. Ronan told himself to remember to find Adam some gloves.

Adam was pleased with the lights. He held one end of the strand, connected to Ronan who held the other. Adam examined them and said, “They’re more beautiful than I thought they would be.”

“Did you think I couldn’t make beautiful things?” Ronan asked, pretending to be offended.

“I’m not sure what I thought,” Adam said. “I couldn’t have imagined something like this. Or anything close to it. That’s the difference between you and me.”

“You can imagine the future, though—that’s badass.”

“It’s not quite imagination,” Adam said, amused. He handed his end of the lights back to Ronan. “Keep these for me. I don’t have anywhere to put them. We’ll get them back out in the spring.”

“Will it have branches then?” Ronan asked. So far, the tree was just a spindly little stick. He wished he’d conjured a faster-growing kind.

Adam smiled. “It’s a magical tree, not a normal one. So who knows?”

Ronan kept the lights, hanging them up in his own room for the time being. He didn’t think about the witch-hazel tree again for months and months, not until the first warm day of spring, when he tramped all the way out to the end of the garden wall to see if it had grown. It had, and there still weren’t any branches, but there were little buds where branches were going to be. He was decently pleased with that.

He walked back through the garden slowly, keeping an eye out for Adam so he could tell him about the buds, but he wasn’t anywhere to be found. Ronan checked the sheds, but no one was there.

He hadn’t seen Adam for a week. He’d been too busy—his father was entertaining diplomats from the neighboring kingdom of Henrietta. One of their princes had come along, and he was Ronan’s age, so Ronan had been tasked with entertaining him. He’d felt marvelously grown-up when his father told him _this is very important, and I’m trusting you to make friends with him._

So. He’d been too busy to see Adam.

Now, Adam was nowhere, and Ronan went reluctantly back inside. He passed through the kitchens to nab a couple of pastries. The cooks always looked the other way, since he was allowed to do as he pleased, but they liked him well enough, so he thought to ask one of them, “Have you seen Adam around today?”

“Adam?” said the cook, surprised. “The gardener’s son?”

“Yes.”

“Well, they’ve all left. They aren’t at the palace.”

“For how long?” he asked, a bit disappointed.

The cook still seemed surprised, but she also looked sorry for him. “Forever, Your Highness. The palace has a new gardener. Adam won’t be coming back.”

Ronan stomped up to his room and threw away the lights. If Adam would leave without saying goodbye, then obviously they hadn’t really been friends. And if they weren’t really friends, Adam didn’t deserve the lights. If they ever saw each other again, if he asked about them, Ronan would just say he didn’t have them anymore, and he wouldn’t deign to explain why.

_I don’t even care,_ he told himself, but secretly, he hoped for a letter.


End file.
